Harry, here's a small dating problem for you. On fleabay right now a Les Paul Special DC (two dog ear P-90s) presented as a Junior 1974. And now comes the odd thing about it: NO SERIAL NUMBER ON THE BACK OF THE HEADSTOCK + A TULIP HEADSTOCK. Should we date this July 1975 or what?

I think that the most logical reason for this odd combination is that this one somehow was forgotten to give a serial number. Tulip headstocks definitely didn´t appear until 1976. Makes it an oddball nevertheless. These two-pickups Juniors are pretty rare, by the way. Seen three until now, one of them is in my collection .

Hey, that's good to know. How are the pickups BTW, because I want such a piece of wood with bad pickups actually to put my two P-100s in. A Fuji Gen made B-brand will do. But I know nothing of the quality of the Japanese P-90 imitations. If I find such a plank with bad pickups, that would justify the transplant. I hought about these TV yellow Vintage single cuts (John Hornby Skewes), but their pickups are too good to replace. BTW, did you read they carry the Wilkinson brand on the covers nowadays?

The pickups on these Ibanez Juniors are the same as used on the LP Special copies (on the Juniors they have "dog-ear covers"), so I´m afraid these are "too good to replace" just the same. I love these P90 style pickups. They´re dirty, mean, agressive and yet gentle when played clean. They have more "hum" which can be inconvenient sometimes, but I love ´em anyway.

The "hum" was one reason I bought the two Gibson P-100 pickups. They are STACKED P-90s actually, which cancels the hum. I already knew them from the ES-135, which I like very much (Andreas Arlt from BB and the Blue Shacks plays it).

The other reason was, that there was only one P-90 left. I wanted SETS, so I bought 6 sets of Gibson pickups that came from a Gibson Les Paul pickup demonstration guitar.

(BTW: I wrote about that before... and NO, I DON'T have the original mahogany blocks, and they are not in the Feedback inventory either, because they threw them away after they took over our local shop AND its competitor. Just to avoid unnecessary e-mails from Finland or Iceland for the blocks. I did my best to get them, but they are lost, thrown away...)

BTW: while googleing for Juniors I found an interview with KIEFER SUTHERLAND (Flatliners, and Jack Bauer in 24) and guess what: the guy collects: http://www.gibsoneurope.com/smartsite.dws?id=8659The sunburst just behind his chair is a Junior (Single Cut). With two pickups it becomes a SPECIAL. Both models were made in a single cutaway and a double cutaway version.

I agree that Gibson calls this a LP Special Doublecut, but what did Ibanez call it? Is it truly a 2343 "FM Jr"? Ibanez - The Untold Story pictures the model with 1 pickup (common configuration) but in the model index, the 2343 is listed as having 2 "Funky Koil" (P-90) pickups. The also describe the 2343 as a copy of a Les Paul TV.

I read that TV BS when googleing for images, but it's based on a misunderstanding. TV is not a type, but a part of a COLOUR NAME: TV YELLOW. They used this colour for black and white television, because it looked better than white on TV. http://home.flash.net/~guitars/TV_Yellow.html

I initially suspected that the 2nd pickup was not factory, but the pickguard is also a bit different from the one pickup models, and the pickguard material is definitely very old (transparent tortoise - who uses that nowadays?). Adding a second pickup would also have meant adding 2 controls and 1 switch as well as re-routing the back of the guitar, all which appear to be factory original.

I'll let everyone know if I find anything strange after I receive the guitar.

Quick update. Received the guitar. Plays great and truly is a real screamer. The "Funky Koil" P-90s pummeled the input of my Hiwatt.

It's completely original. It does have some major wear on the "armrest" area of the top that was not pictured in the auction. I gotta give the seller the benefit of the doubt, though - he's had the best communication of any seller I've dealt with.

Cool find, I'd have been happy to pay far more than that for it... I did for mine and it needs the neck reset (think I paid around 600 for mine but the guy didn't tell me the neck had issues either so I overpaid with his bad info. I'm looking into having it fixed up, your find got me more excited about getting it back going... by the way, the one linked to is mine! Mine is original as well (other than one pickup which was swapped for an old duncan... but I've got a super 70's replacement sitting around too incase I want to put that in there eventually. Very nice find and one heck of a deal for a set neck paul! There's another on ebay single pickup the guy wants 900 for now I think... which seems a little high to me unless it was the dual pickup like ours, but not unreasonable for a nice condition LP. I still don't know what to call mine, the Ibanez catalog info always confuses me, lol.

Well, yours is in much better shape than mine. I may have to do some finish touch-ups as one edge of the body, about 4" long, is really wrecked. Not from wear either (I'd be OK with normal wear). That said, it sounds really cool. Plugged into the Hiwatt, it's total Townshend.

Since the neck is Mahogany, fairly slim, and joined at the last fret, this Ibanez is really sensetive to any pressure on the neck. I wish they'd done a 3 piece neck or reinforced it with graphite bars. I'm going to go one string gauge lighter and give the truss rod a crank to see if I can stabilize it a bit. You get what you get with that type of construction. No wonder I'm such a big fan of Maple necks...